Shhhhh. Hear that noise? Sounds like a posse of ACLU lawyers galloping toward Suffolk to thwart a move by school officials to force boys to dress like boys. Great. Just what the city needs. A doomed - and expensive - legal battle to rip the wigs off one or two high school cross-dressers.

It's early February, and that means just one thing in Virginia Beach: It's time to prepare folks for tax hikes. Trouble is, taxpayers are a grumpy bunch. Especially in this stagnant economy. If city honchos want to squeeze more money out of the working schlumps, it's going to take a lot of work.

On Friday morning, when news broke that Pete Decker had died, I reached for the phone to call WTKR’s Barbara Ciara. The two are forever linked in my mind because I first met them at a fundraiser at least 25 years ago.

Delete.

That’s what I hit when these three letters – “FWD” – pop up in an email.

Life’s too short to read dopey jokes, admire pet pictures or hear some recycled urban legend that’s already been debunked on Snopes.com.

It's not you, Tommy. It's them. Look, someone has to assure City Councilman Tommy Smigiel that he shouldn't take it personally. Guess I'll have to do it. So what if he is the only member of that governing body who wants to stand up and denounce Councilman Paul Riddick's long history of not paying taxes? Lack of courage on Norfolk's City Council? Color me unsurprised.

It's almost midnight on a Saturday. I'm on the elliptical, alone in the gym. Sweat pours down my face and puddles in my shoes. Suddenly my cellphone rings, jolting me to attention. On the other end, the weekend editor. "Where's your column?" he bellows. "I'm still thinking," I pant. "I don't have a good idea yet."

Here's an idea. Let's all try to stay calm today as we discuss the most explosive issue in education. Tenure. You know, job security. On steroids. The kind most workers will never have. Tenure has one major drawback: It protects bad teachers. Everything you need to know about it can be gleaned from this honking headline in Thursday's Pilot:

It wouldn't be wintertime in Virginia unless at least one politician arrived in Richmond carrying a bill so wacky that it's guaranteed to garner headlines. And almost no support. Meet Del. David Englin, from Alexandria, who's cooked up this session's juiciest slice of crazy.

Gloomy news rained down on us last week. Horrific car crashes. Tax cheats. Shootings. Train derailments. Seems to me, we've earned some glad tidings. And here they are: This is the final full week of January and virtually no one - in Virginia, anyway - has the flu.

I once worked with a guy who supported higher taxes. In fact, he never saw a levy he didn't like, and he griped constantly that Virginia was a "low-tax state." As if that were a bad thing.